


Watching the Detectives

by Dragon_Lord



Category: Zoo (TV)
Genre: detectives au, no actual pairings, or whatever his name is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 23:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_Lord/pseuds/Dragon_Lord
Summary: When he can't achieve his childhood dream of becoming Sherlock Holmes (because apparently consulting detectives don't actually exist), Logan has to settle for the closest he can get, which is a regular, police detective. There are a few things on the job he's not prepared for.





	Watching the Detectives

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the Detective AU I hinted at on tumblr like two weeks ago, in the flesh!
> 
> For now, it's just a one-shot. I don't really have plans on continuing--I just had to get this out of my system.

Logan had wanted to be a detective all his life. Well, ever since he was four years old and he saw his first Sherlock Holmes movie (Basil Rathbone, 1945—his mother was a fan of the classics), but that was so long ago, it may as well have been his entire life. Of course, it didn’t take long to figure out that detectives like Sherlock Holmes didn’t actually exist—at least, not outside of fiction—and if he wanted to solve crimes, he’d have to do it the hard way, by joining the academy.

So really, he ended up being more of an Inspector Lestrade rather than a Sherlock Holmes. A small hiccup in his plans, but not enough to deter him.

However, it took years longer than his four-year-old self could have imagined to even get to that point. Because you didn’t just graduate from the police academy and become a detective immediately. No, Logan started out as a cop, the lowest on the food chain, assigning speeding tickets and keeping unruly teenagers from defacing buildings. Only after years of hard work and perseverance (and taking the detective exam three times over), was his dream realized.

But he never imagined that being a detective would involve this much goddamn _paperwork._

His chair squeaked as he turned it in slow half-circles and glared at the pile of papers on his desk, clicking his pen out and in, out and in, never actually using it. In the desk across from his, Mitch glanced up from his own work and gave his usual expression of exasperated annoyance.

“You need a pencil, kid?”

He put the pen down. “Sorry.”

That was another thing he hadn’t expected—his partner. Detective Morgan was good at his job, that was for sure. Logan did a little research before meeting him, and he had quite a track record of solving even the trickiest of cases.

But he also had a record around the station of going through more partners than anyone could keep up with. None of them had stayed for longer than a month before they either quit or requested re-assignment.

It wasn’t until Logan met the man that he understood why. Mitch Morgan was arguably the biggest jackass on the force. It took him three days to remember Logan’s name, he was unbearably condescending, and his mouth was always twisted into a permanent frown. On top of that, all of Logan’s attempts at conversation not relating to work were met with vague responses.

Family?

“We’re not close.”

Hobbies?

“Not really.”

Favorite color?

“No.”

It had only been a week, and Logan had nearly had enough. The only reason he hadn’t yet requested a new partner was pride. He was determined not to let this man break him.

This paperwork, on the other hand…

“This is ridiculous,” he finally said.

Without looking up, Mitch said, “You haven’t even started yet.”

“All we did was arrest one guy who robbed one convenience store,” Logan continued. “Why do we have to fill out ten pages of paperwork for that?”

“Look, you’re new here, and you seem enthusiastic about solving real crimes with the big boys, and that’s great and all,” he said, never pausing in his writing, “but as much as I hate to crush your dreams, about ninety percent of this job _is_ paperwork. So shut up and grab a pen.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes and groan (because he wasn’t a teenager, for god’s sake), Logan took up his pen again, clicked it once, and started writing.

Two minutes later, he took a break.

“So…” he began, disregarding the already irritated look on his partner’s face, “what’s up with that Jamie chick, down in the lab?”

He now looked, if possible, even more irritated. “ _Miss Campbell_ to you. You’ve only been here a week. And ‘her deal’ is that she’s our forensic lab technician, what of it?”

Logan shrugged. “Just wondering.”

Truth be told, Jamie Campbell had been a sight for sore eyes—one look at her, and he was forgetting everything he already didn’t like about being a detective.

\---

_“What exactly does the lab technician do?”_

_He knew it was a stupid question, and Detective Morgan seemed to take stupid questions as an open invitation to be sarcastic, but at the moment, he didn’t have anyone else to ask._

_“All the computer work,” Mitch said, leading him down a wide stairwell. “Facial recognition, fingerprint analysis, all that good stuff. In short, she’s a lot smarter than you, and she knows it. Upstairs, we call her the lab rat.”_

_“Lab rat,” Logan repeated with a slight chuckle. “That’s funny.”_

_Mitch gave his trademark condescending smirk that Logan was already starting to hate. “Calm down, kid, you haven’t earned that privilege yet. You’ll call her Miss Campbell.”_

_He bit back his retort as he followed his partner into the lab._

_It was about a quarter of the size of the bullpen—spacious enough for two people to work comfortably, though there was only one desk in the far corner. The rest of the room was filled with tables of varying heights, all carrying different kinds of machinery that Logan didn’t have names for._

_Just as he was about to point out the very obvious fact that the room was empty—_

_“If you’re here for those DNA results, you’re just in time.”_

_A woman popped up from behind one of the machines, smiling wryly, and Logan blinked._

_She was, in a word, gorgeous. Long legs, red curls, and he didn’t know anyone could make a lab coat look that good. If this was indeed Miss Campbell, she was not at all what he’d expected. He could only wonder what such an attractive woman was doing shut up in a basement lab all day._

_Maneuvering her way around the table, she approached them with a sheaf of papers in hand. “How do you always know exactly when to visit my lab, Mitch?”_

_Logan glanced to his left and nearly fell over in shock at what looked to be an actual, genuine smile on Mitch’s face._

_“Guess I just have a sixth sense about these kinds of things,” he said, taking the papers from her. At Logan’s slight throat-clearing, he continued, sans smile. “This is my new partner, Detective… Luke, was it?”_

_He glared. “Logan. Logan Hale.”_

_“Right, of course,” he snapped his fingers. “Detective Hale, this is Jamie Campbell, our forensic lab technician.”_

_She finally looked at him with piercing blue eyes and the politest of smiles. “Nice to meet you, Detective. You’ve probably already figured out that Mitch here can be a bit difficult to deal with, but don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite.”_

_\---_

As far as Logan could tell, she was the only one in the building who could stand to hold a conversation with Detective Morgan for longer than thirty seconds, so she really wasn’t the authority on how bad his ‘bite’ could be.

“You know if she’s seeing anyone?” Logan asked, just to get under his skin.

It worked. Mitch gripped his pen tighter and glared at his paperwork. “I don’t, but I do know there’s a rule against inter-office romances. It’s all in the handbook that you probably haven’t read yet.”

Logan smirked. He wasn’t an idiot—he saw the looks Jamie and his partner had been giving each other down in the lab, and Mitch certainly had the advantage of knowing her longer. But Logan wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.

Leaning back in his chair just so, he said, “Maybe some rules are made to be broken.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please feel free to drop a kudos or leave a review!
> 
> (Titled after the Elvis Costello song)


End file.
